


Teach Me to Fall

by hey-there-bret (conchord)



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Anna needs a hug, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Hewlett is ridiculously in love with Anna, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Star-crossed Babes, smut-lite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6697228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conchord/pseuds/hey-there-bret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edmund finds Anna on a quiet night playing the harpsichord by candlelight.</p><p>Loosely set in season 2, post-"Providence"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teach Me to Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CalamityBean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityBean/gifts).



Edmund hears her playing the harpsichord on a warm summer’s evening. He cannot say how he knows it is her, except perhaps by process of elimination. Mary tends to play quite beautifully, her small fingers dancing easily over the keys, Thomas rocking his legs back and forth beside her. The song that has reached his bedroom door tonight sounds untrained, and far too simple for Mary’s talents. And he cannot even imagine Richard or Abe playing – the thought alone makes Edmund chuckle. No, he thinks, it can only be Anna sitting down below playing some half-remembered song.

Edmund’s feet are halfway down the stairs before he pauses. He hesitates on the next step, leaning all his weight on his uninjured foot. He’s fully dressed, as he hasn’t yet had the chance to change into his sleepwear; he runs his fingers across his jacket buttons to be sure. No, what gives him pause is the possibility that Anna does not wish to be disturbed.

 _But it’s not that late_ , he considers. _She would have known that my coming down was a possibility_. He doesn’t want to impose, of course, if Anna truly wishes to be alone. He is turning to make his way back up the stairs – his bottom lip between his teeth, not wanting to make a sound – when he hears Anna swear softly under her breath, the vibrations of a missed note echoing in the corridor.

Edmund stops short, though he cannot be sure why. A cautious soldier he may once have been, but he’s heard his fair share of expletives in the army. Has even dropped his own from time to time. It’s not even the sound of a woman swearing that has caused his eyes to widen. Lord knows it’s women who have the most just cause to do so, given the climate of war and death that is constantly knocking on their doors and shattering their homesteads. 

He thinks, rather, it is the sound of _Anna_ cursing that has provoked his reaction, her voice quick and sharp for just a moment, the word not falling from her lips but flung from them.

To his surprise, Edmund finds his cheeks growing warm, the collar of his jacket impossibly tighter around his neck. He tugs the fabric with one hand and, without consciously deciding to do so, limps the rest of the way down the stairs toward the sitting room.

Anna is indeed sitting at the bench, her dark eyes darting from her hands to what he assumes is a sleeve of sheet music. Only a few candles are lit, all of which are positioned around and on the harpsichord itself, throwing the rest of the room in wavering shadow. Edmund stands just beyond the entrance to the sitting room and observes Anna’s face, most notably the frustration that develops with each missed musical phrase. After only a few moments, Anna sighs and ceases her playing, her lips thinned into a straight line. She grabs the sheet music and, just before she looks as though she is about to tear it to pieces, looks up to find Edmund staring at her.

He wants to run. He’s going to run, back up those stairs and into his bedroom, damaged foot be damned. But before his body can carry out his plan, his mouth – that wide, cavernous pit with its own rules and motivations – decides to take a crack at saving him.

“Ah, Anna…I’m so sorry to intrude. I heard the music, you see, and, um…I couldn’t help but see if it was…well, not that I knew it was you, of course. Not that it’s not a pleasure to see you. Indeed, it’s quite …ah…splendid, really. Well…” His feet are already leading him out the door, his hands bent slightly behind him to ensure he doesn’t run into anything, when Anna speaks.

“Edmund, I think you’re apologizing about as well as I’m playing. So how about we call it a truce?” She stares back at him, her head cocked to the side. She is smiling, if only just so.

Edmund stops retreating, though he doesn’t attempt to shorten the distance between them. He truly is going to leave if Anna wishes to be alone.

“Ah, well, yes. Thank you. I’ll, um, leave you alone, if you like?”

The candles are flickering across Anna’s face, throwing one side of her face in darkness. She leans a little to her right, and Edmund wonders at the relief he feels at seeing all of her features awash in the candle glow. She hums softly beneath her breath.

“Yes, I’ll need to get back to my playing. I’m sure there are at least a dozen more hymns that need to be butchered before sunrise. I can’t be distracted.”

She says it all with a solemn face, and thus it takes Edmund a full moment to laugh. Then they are both giggling, a strange moment that is somehow more intoxicating under the blanket of night, with Richard and Abe and Mary and little Thomas right upstairs. A curl of black drops down from Anna’s bun as she shakes her head, and Edmund feels younger than he has since he came to Setauket. He takes a tentative step forward.

“If I may ask, what brought about such musical… aspirations this evening?” He had meant to say _desires_ , but found his lips at a loss for how to articulate such a word.

But at his query, Anna’s face goes blank, the warm smile dripping down from her face like candle wax. Her gaze drifts over to the open window, where a crescent moon stares back at them.

“There was a hymn someone played at my wedding once,” she says. Edmund’s feet, which had been edging closer and closer to Anna’s side, now halted. Anna continued talking, though she sounds interminably distant, her voice an ocean away.

“I wanted to hear it again, though I can’t for the life of me remember what hymn it was. It feels like something I should remember, especially now.”

She talking to herself now, her eyes fixed on nothing at all. Edmund can easily imagine what she is seeing, however. The letter that arrived here three weeks ago over breakfast; the shaking of her hands as she read the words that cemented her status as a widow, her life as the once-wife of Selah Strong banished to memory. Edmund had rushed to Anna’s side but couldn’t think of the words to say, his usual manners forgotten.

Now, as he stands nearby, he wanted to both quiet his heartbeat and cry out at the same time, to remind Anna of his presence while simultaneously retreating into the dark shadows of the room.

“It had something to do with trees in the spring, though that doesn’t quite narrow it down, does it? There’s a verse about flowers, and…broken petals falling into the sea.” She paused to wipe her eyes, though Edmund noted that they were dry. She stared down at her open palms. “I came here to cry. To play this song and remember Selah, the life we once had.” She looked up, finding Edmund, her eyes dry and dark. She appeared to be cut from stone.

“But it seems I’ve let him down again.”

She looks so interminably sad that Edmund finds himself walking closer, though it is not until Anna shifts a little down the bench that he sits down. Anna is curled into herself, her hands clutched on her lap. Edmund is at a loss for what to do, and a part of him – the part that reminds him of who he was when he first came to Setauket, the fearful major who allowed demons like Simcoe to infiltrate the town because he was too scared to act – yearns to remove himself from this moment. To retreat to the sanctity of his bedroom, away from this woman who even now – in the throes of grief, her body bent in sorrow – is more beautiful than she probably realizes.

But Edmund knows that he is no longer that same person who ran from glory all those years ago, that those boundaries between man and major have since blurred, primarily due to the woman who sits beside him now. And even though it’s messier and far more complicated, he knows he can’t go back to his life before – before Setauket, before looking up and seeing Anna sitting across from him at the dinner table every morning and every night, or moving swiftly amongst the tables and buffoonery at the tavern.

He has no idea how to proceed – in this moment and so many others – but for this woman he thinks he can try. With a shoring of courage, Edmund reaches out to lay his hands on Anna’s, still clutched on her lap—

Which is when his hand brushes against the keys of the harpsichord, dispelling a loud and altogether unpleasant noise from the bowels of the instrument to every corner of the sitting room.

 _Hereby known as my graveside_ , Hewlett grimaces.

Four or five seconds pass before the notes die out, and Hewlett is sure that he can hear his own breath in the subsequent silence. Then, he feels a slight shuddering against his left arm. He turns to find Anna laughing into her hands, her shoulders bouncing as she tries to keep from making a sound. They make eye contact and suddenly they are both lost in a bout of giggling. Anna leans her head back and tears fall from her cheeks, and Edmund takes a few deep breaths to calm his pulse.

Then, without a word, Anna moves her head slightly until it is resting on his shoulder. She reaches out to silently tap her fingers against the instrument’s keys, and in an unsolicited rush of happiness Edmund brushes his lips to the top of Anna’s hair. He freezes, thinking perhaps he can pass the gesture off as accidental. Anna, however, merely hums beside him. Edmund tries to squash down the disappointment he feels at this non-response, focusing instead on the movement of Anna’s fingers against the keys.  

 _She’s three weeks into mourning properly for her husband_ , he berates himself. _Just say goodnight and remove yourself ‘til the morning. She needs space. She needs—_

“Perhaps I can help with finding the hymn?” he asks.

 _Well. Damn_.

Anna lifts her head, and Edmund tries not to miss her slight weight on his shoulder. She bites her lip, seeming to consider his offer, though her facial expressions are difficult to detect in the candlelight. Finally, she nods her head.

“But, honestly, I can’t remember anything that will be helpful.”

Edmund settles more comfortably on their shared bench, more confident now that he has a clear objective in mind. “That’s quite alright. We’ll simply…erm…try to work together, yes?”

He settles his hands on the keys, trying to ignore his proximity to Anna, whose entire right side now seems to be running the length of his left. He plays a few notes, if only to have something else to focus on.

“Now,” he says, “I must confess I don’t have an extended knowledge of religious hymns, and, well, even less of the more popular America ones. You see, I tend to prefer music that doesn’t require a singing component…”

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” Anna adds. He knows before he glances over that Anna is grinning, can hear the slight lift in her voice as she teases him. 

Edmund smirks. “Yes, well, the glories of _“_ _Rule_ _,_ _Britannia_ ” notwithstanding, I am not unaware that my…erm…musical talents lie elsewhere. And I imagine this realization has made my fellow parishioners quite happy indeed.”

Anna shakes her head, knocking against his shoulder slightly. Edmund feels giddy, and tilts his body toward her in response. She sighs, a small exhale almost lost beneath the music, and Edmund wants to know every last thing about this woman.

“Do you like to sing?” he asks.

She is quiet as she continues watching Edmund’s hands. He tries not to let it affect his playing, though he feels his palms begin to sweat.

“I don’t anymore,” she responds. “It was my mother who liked to sing. Long, wandering valley songs about, oh, everything and nothing.”

Edmund wrinkles his brow. “I don’t think I’ve heard of valley songs.”

“Oh, they’re just stories put to music. Girls in the woods and cursed young men. Lost love. Roving battles with no happy endings. Silly songs for the long nights.”

Edmund doesn’t know anything about Anna’s mother – a fact that leaves him strangely sad.

“Is—is that why you don’t sing anymore? Because of your…um…mother?”

Anna closes her eyes, though she doesn’t look sad (he thinks he knows by now what Anna’s face looks like when she’s sad). No, she looks as though she’s about to drift into sleep, soft and peaceful and absent of the bevy of emotions that usually occupy her expressions.

“My mother sang of everything, but most of all love. She loved my father like nothing I’ve seen before…or since. It was like,” she wrinkles her brow in concentration, “oh, there’s not even a word for it. Something to do with belonging. Like looking into my father’s eyes and seeing herself.”

Edmund continues playing, though he is listening attentively to Anna’s words. For some reason, he can’t stop his hands from moving, as if doing so will break the spell. He does slow down, however, transitioning from the lively compositions of Schubert to the languid—though no less mathematically perfect—harmonies of Bach.

“And there are a great many reasons to sing, I suppose,” Anna continues. She opens her eyes, and though Edmund is relieved to find them empty of tears he also sees a hardness, the black like stone beneath her lashes. She scoffs, an ugly sound that threatens to disrupt the intimacy of the moment.

“But all of my mother’s songs seem to circle back to love eventually, some uncomplicated happiness between two people. With everything that’s happened,” she pauses, and looks away from him, “I don’t think I’ll ever understand that kind of love. Not really.”

Edmund wants to yank her out of these memories and back to his side, on this bench in this small, stubborn town. He suddenly wants her to feel so much happiness, not because she is a woman living in the midst of war or because of her dead husband or her lost, loving parents, but because she is _Anna_ , a woman who has tendered such courage and love in his life that he sometimes fears he will topple from it.

“Perhaps you may not need to understand…love…to feel it, Anna,” he says.

She looks up at him, and with his eyes on the keys, Edmund begins to remember.

“My father used to ask me why I studied the stars. He’d say, ‘Why wrap your days in something that you will never see, or touch, or understand?’ And it was a long time before I found an answer that suited him, though I think I’d always known, somehow. I turned to him and said, ‘Father, I don’t study the stars because I assume that I will decipher their science, or because I truly believe that I will one day gaze upon them without the aid of a telescope. I study the stars because, up there, there are no pointless skirmishes or death. No war to gamble the lives of men away.”

Anna stares back at him, her eyes attentive and fixed upon his. A breeze blows through a nearby open window, and Edmund stops playing to tuck the hair that has come undone behind Anna’s right ear. His hand is shaking, but if she notices she doesn’t say anything.

“And did he believe you?” Anna asks. She is close enough that Edmund can feel her words ghost across his face. He can barely think to locate an answer. He glances down at her lips, if only to avoid her gaze.

“No. It was what my father needed to hear, and only partly true. You see, Anna, I study the stars because I _know_ I will never understand them, and because I don’t need to understand them to respect their beauty, their power. It is such an easy exchange.” He shakes his head. “Of course, I offer very little in return.”

This time it is Anna’s turn to shake her head. “That’s not true at all. You offer your time, and your patience, and your admiration. What more could the stars ask from you?”

Edmund feels the weight of Anna’s hand on his, and he struggles not to clench it too tightly as he turns his palm upward. He lays his other hand on top of their grasp, and Anna laughs – she _laughs_ – as she places her other hand on top. Edmund joins in, the laughter not shattering the moment so much as bending it.

When it is silent again, Edmund notices how intimately they are sitting. Their sides run the length of each other and their conjoined hands rest atop his thigh. One of Anna’s fingers brushes against the silver buttons of his jacket, and her skin looks pale against the red fabric. She frowns, her forehead wrinkling in the candlelight. When she looks up, she seems altogether afraid and determined, her eyes darting between his in quick succession. She takes a breath, slides her hands out of his, and says his name.

“Edmund…”

And he can’t let her go on. Can’t let her say whatever it is that will rupture this moment, because that’s what it will do. He’s sure of it. And he hates himself but he’s so afraid of losing this. Afraid of the brokenness in Anna’s eyes and the hard line of her shoulders as she pulls away from him. So he does the only thing that he can think to do.

He kisses her.

Well, he tries. Just as he leans forward, his palm ghosting across Anna’s jaw line to bring her closer, a sudden breeze blows in from the open window and throws the sheet music into disarray. The sound of paper fills the room, and Edmund snatches his hand back from Anna’s cheek, trying to ignore the blush that he sees there. Anna doesn’t meet his eyes as she stands and moves about the room, her arms quickly filling with sheet music. Edmund sighs and joins her, bending down to tug a copy of Mozart out from beneath a cabinet.

When he turns, Anna is placing the stack of music on the harpsichord. The breeze has snuffed the candles out, and thus the only source of light is the moon drifting through the curtains. Edmund makes no move to stand closer, and only watches as the moonlight envelopes Anna’s silhouette.

Anna stands silently for a few moments, though he notices that her fingers are tapping lightly against the player’s glossed wood. She seems agitated, though Edmund himself is doing no better. He half expects her to hear his racing pulse from across the room. He forbids himself from shuffling his feet, though he can’t stop himself from wiping the sweat of his palms off on his trousers. Anna turns toward him, and he damns the lack of candlelight by which to see her clearly.

“Anna—”

“I—"

They speak at once, then stop just as suddenly. Before either can continue, a creak of floorboard sounds from above.

They each look up, and Edmund holds his breath. How loud have they been talking? How long? A few seconds of silence pass before Edmund releases his breath and looks down, the silence comforting despite the fact that Anna has at some point moved closer to him. She now stands just a few inches away, and Edmund angles his body to see her face more clearly in the moonlight. She still seems troubled, though perhaps less so, as she closes the distance between them to rest her hands on the front of his jacket.

He is sure that she can feel his heartbeat through the fabric, but for some reason he doesn’t care. Rather, he wishes she were ghosting her hands against the skin beneath, his injuries and trembling pulse laid open and bare for her. He rests his palms against her hands, and they seem to breathe together.

Anna ceases biting her bottom lip, and Edmund wants nothing more than to brush his own lips against it, to feel the bite marks against his tongue – evidence of some unspoken words that Anna has secreted away, words that he knows will come later. But not now, not when Anna is looking up at him with dark eyes like the night sky, leaning up on her toes to press her lips against his.

Edmund hears someone on the second floor cough, which causes him to look up just as Anna brushes her lips against his chin. The kiss is so soft that Edmund isn’t entirely sure it happened, though Anna’s giggle seems to suggest otherwise. He smiles, and for one absurd moment he looks up again, extending his chin for Anna’s gaze. To his surprise, she leans forward and kisses him just to the left of her first kiss, planting her hands on his shoulders for leverage. Edmund laughs, and is about to look down when he feels the fingers of Anna’s right hand against the side of his neck, keeping him in place.

When she kisses him again, it is at his jaw line. This one lasts much longer, her lips peeling away from his skin slowly. Edmund closes his eyes and drops his hands to Anna’s waist, unconsciously tugging her closer. The world narrows to the series of kisses Anna presses against his neck. His jaw. His pulse point. When he feels the sweep of her tongue on the skin just beneath his ear, he takes a ragged breath, his hands flying upward to grasp her face.

Anna rests her forehead against his, her eyes shut tight, as he swallows a few deep breaths. His eyes are closed as well, but it’s better, because this way he remains lost in the smell and feel of Anna. After a few moments she lifts her head, her hair brushing against his nose. Edmund opens his eyes, and is baffled – and a little hurt – to find that, while he’s struggling to maintain some semblance of decorum, Anna herself seems entirely calm.

Disturbed by such an imbalance (but not wanting to call attention to it) he lowers his right hand over her pulse point. Beneath his palm is a rapid flutter of beats matching, if not exceeding, his own. 

Anna rolls her eyes and smiles. “Yes, Edmund. It’s not just you.”

“It’s not quite fair, is it?” he laughs. “I suppose I’d make a terrible spy.”

Anna’s gaze breaks, her focus flickering away. Her hands, which had been resting at his waist, clutch the fabric of his jacket tightly. After a second, she takes a breath and looks up, her eyes fixed on him.

“Well,” she says, nodding her head, “perhaps we’ll have to train you better.”

Edmund nods, his hands skimming up Anna’s neck lightly. His left thumb brushes against her cheek and Anna shocks him by turning her head to kiss the pad. Her breath is warm against his skin, and he cannot stop himself from allowing his thumb to linger against her lips, tracing their shape.

Edmund feels lost, like his mind his skipped off ahead of him somehow, happily disorientated by Anna’s nearness. It is not until Anna nips at his thumb that he realizes he has been standing in a daze for several moments. She chuckles back at him, her voice soft in the darkness. He wants to tell her so many things, to know her tastes and frustrations and passions. He wants to reach back to when they first met, to pluck that memory from so long ago and place it at her feet and change it, the way she’s changed him. He wants to apologize, for the war that surrounds them, even if it meant meeting her.

And he will do all of those things, he promises, but not just now. Now it is dark and quiet. And there is something to be said about the courage that night promises. Edmund shifts closer, his palms holding Anna’s face, and closes his eyes only when he sees Anna do the same.

The kiss they share is gentle, a quiet pressure that sends tremors through Edmund’s body. His hands move from Anna’s face to the back of her neck, and his fingers card through her hair at the base of her bun. Anna leans her head to the side, sliding her lips along his like silk. She clutches his jacket tightly before gliding her hands up to his face, where she rests her palms against his cheekbones. 

Anna opens her mouth and whispers his name, _Edmund…_ , just before slipping her tongue between his lips. He welcomes her with enthusiasm, clutching her face and pressing gently with his thumbs to widen her lips. She brushes the roof of his mouth and he makes a falling noise at the back of his throat. He pulls back to catch his breath, but not before he nips at her bottom lip, a gesture that causes Anna to gasp beneath him. They stand chest to chest, their breath ragged in the moonlight.

Edmund gazes back at Anna, his mind attempting to see beyond the fog of pleasure that has enveloped him. The cough that sounds from the second floor ( _Richard? Abraham?)_ helps with this. Anna’s eyes widen, and he tries not to groan when she instinctively grasps the skin at the back of his neck. He suddenly recalls that they are standing in the Woodhull residence, with four persons just upstairs who could make themselves known at any moment. Edmund tries to clear his mind, his eyes focusing and refocusing on the woman before him. 

He clears his throat and looks toward the window. “Perhaps we should say goodnight for now. It’s nearly morning.”

Anna turns toward the window behind her, and by fate or by circumstance her hair begins to tumble down from her bun, cascading down her pale neck in rivulets of brown. Anna must feel this, because the next thing she does is reach behind to tug the hair over one shoulder. 

It is such a simple gesture – one that she must do every night before bed without thought – but Edmund is transfixed. How often has he sat at his desk while this occurred, separated from Anna’s door by mere meters? How many chances will he have to see it again, beyond this night that frays the very fibers of reality? 

These thoughts terrify and embolden him all at once.

He walks closer to Anna, who stands facing away from him. She must hear him move because she glances back at him over her shoulder. Is it the moon that alters her smile into something ethereal? Edmund’s pace falters, but when he blinks she is simply Anna again, the woman he visited in a tavern so many months ago. The same woman who peered up into the sky and said his name like it was some fragile thing.

He closes the distance between them and in one blissful movement places his hands at her waist, the fabric slightly wrinkled from before. He grins, awed at this small evidence of their embrace. Anna hums, wrapping her hands around her waist and pulling his own until he is gripping her fully. Edmund rests his forehead against the back of her head for a moment, taking stock in her racing pulse. He leans his head down, and his mouth is just an inch from her exposed neck when he yields, terrified by this step, of what will come when night turns into morning. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying desperately to dispel these fears, when he feels the gentle pressure of Anna’s palm at the back of his neck.

“It’s alright, Edmund. Let’s make the night last a bit longer. _Please_.”

Hearing her urgency, Edmund falls into Anna’s neck and shoulders, peppering her skin with soft and hard kisses. He grips her waist tightly in his hands, feeling the fabric of her dress beneath his fingers. Anna moans, and Edmund follows the sound with his lips, up and down the column of her throat until it is a patchwork of red. He feels like he should apologize for that, except that Anna is scratching the back of his neck with greater and greater need, no doubt leaving marks of her own.

“Anna…” he whispers into her ear. She shivers, leaving a pattern of tiny goose bumps behind. He laves them with his tongue and then blows cold air against his skin just to see her shiver again. She smacks him gently on the head and laughs, raising her shoulder to keep his tongue at bay.

It is a mounting game of wills after this. Edmund spins Anna around to his chest, her skirt twirling beneath them. He knows nothing beyond her hands and lips, which clash against his own in a messy tangle of skin. Anna keens when Edmund slips his tongue into her mouth, and he spends several moments exploring this wonderful new facet as her hands tug at his jacket collar. He moans when she breaks their kiss – chaotic, wet, _perfect_ – and ducks her head to nudge the skin just above his collar, nipping at his neck in long rows of kisses, perhaps until his skin mirrors her own.

A clock in the next room chimes and Anna pulls away, though only enough to lean her head against his chest. Edmund rests his hands in her hair, which by now is a mess of dark tangles. They breathe together, the room dark and still once more. He thinks he hears Anna humming softly, some tune both familiar and strange, but he cannot be sure. After several moments, Anna snickers.

“Edmund?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you…braiding my hair?”

He stills, opening his eyes to find that he has indeed been braiding Anna’s hair, which now falls down her back in one long plait.

“…Yes. It seems I…um…have. I did this regularly for _Bucephalus long ago.”_

She chuckles, and burrows her head into his jacket. He rests his hand at her shoulders, his fingertips skimming the exposed skin. 

“Are you calling me a horse?”

He laughs, resting his cheek at the top of her head.

“Ah, no. I’m afraid not. You’re _far_ too stubborn, my dear.”   

She lifts her head, and he brushes his hand against her cheek. It is slightly warm from his jacket, though Edmund supposes that Anna’s blood has always felt warmer than his own. And wild in a way that he doesn’t quite understand. But there is time for that, he thinks, even beyond tonight. He grasps her cheeks, and Anna sighs from somewhere deep inside. Yes, there will be time for understanding. For learning all the wild, secret ways of Anna.

                                                                              *** 

He walks her to her door just as the other members of the house are waking up. He hears Mary talking to her son, the soft words of love between mother and child. He’d like to tell Anna about his own mother one day, and the anticipation of this conversation – and so many others – leaves him breathless.

Anna opens her door and leans against the frame, her eyes darting about the hallway before she reaches out and tugs him forward by one of the buttons of his uniform. He thinks she is about to kiss him and leans forward in anticipation (his eagerness is obvious, he thinks, though entirely justified under the circumstances). Instead, Anna turns her head until her lips are against his left ear.

“I think I know how the stars feel,” she whispers, her breath hot against his skin. “Thank you for that.”

She kisses him just below his ear, her lips lingering for a few precious moments. He gasps when he feels her tug at his earlobe with her teeth, and he stifles a moan just as she pulls away. His eyes are still shut when Anna turns, shutting the door behind her with a soft click.  

Edmund runs his fingers against the bruised skin of his throat as he walks back to his room, shivering when he hits a particularly sensitive spot below his collar. He’ll need to wear a scarf tomorrow, but he can’t seem to mind. 

He falls into bed a few minutes later and dreams of a curtain of stars falling about him, all the more beautiful in their nearness, their unknowingness. He remembers reaching out to touch one and burning the tips of his fingers, though even in his dream he cannot be cross. That’s what stars do, he supposes. They burn so that others may see in the darkness. So that others may have a reason to look up and see beyond themselves.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to continue this story further, perhaps from Anna's point of view. I know that Anna has her own secrets and struggles, and I'd like the chance to dig into them. I'd also really enjoy more sexy times (my original intention for this piece, though it turns out Edmund and Anna had a lot to talk about to get there). If you have any recommendations as to where you'd like the story to go, I'd love to hear them. 
> 
> If you'd like to follow me on tumblr for updates and Turn gifsets, my URL is hey-there-bret
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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